With the increasing demand for automobile safety and low fuel consumption, specifications for the tread rubber compounds have become more demanding. Tire treads are required to be very tough and very wear resistant, have a high degree of traction on both wet and dry surfaces, provide low rolling resistance and heat build up and retain their rubbery characteristics over a wide temperature range. However some of these requirements are essentially incompatible with one another.
The addition of a halogenated butyl rubber to the tread formulation of a tire leads to an improvement in the wet skid resistance of the tire tread but there is a concomitant reduction in the wear resistance of the tire tread. Thus it would be desirable if the halogenated butyl rubber could be modified in a manner such that when used in a tire tread formulation, the improved wet skid resistance is retained and additionally there is improved wear resistance while a desirable balance of the other physical properties is maintained.